Page 4 of Shielded Heart

Arcanthus pressed a hand over his chest. “You wound me, old friend. I’m merely intrigued. Nothing more.”

“Obsessed,” Drakkal repeated, glancing out the side window. “You need new hobbies.”

“What difference does the way I spend my free time make?”

“With as much as you pushed that zenturi, I have a right to be concerned. You were outgunned on that one.”

“I could have dispatched him if I’d wanted to.”

Drakkal laughed; the sound, deep and rich, seemed to rise from his belly. “No, you couldn’t have. You’re a top-grade fighter, Arc—the best I’ve ever seen—but he was akiller.”

“Is there a difference, azhera?”

“When you were messing with his mate, yes. He would’ve taken you out.”

“Do you recall our earlier discussion about telling little lies to help me feel better?”

“I do. Especially the part where I implied it wouldn’t happen.”

Arcanthus threw up his hands. “Fine! You win, Drakkal.”

“Good. You’re finally—”

“I’ll make suremyterran isn’t spoken for.”

The string of curses that tumbled out of Drakkal’s mouth—all in the obscure dialect of his clan, which translator implants seemed unable to decipher—made Arcanthus laugh whole-heartedly. His laughter only provoked fresh oaths from the azhera.

When they arrived home, Drakkal left Arcanthus to his own devices, muttering to himself about how he should’ve gone back to his homeworld years ago to become a fisher, a shopkeeper, or a trash collector—anything other than Arc’s business partner.

Arcanthus’s humor lingered until he was alone in his workshop. He entered through one of the rear passages; the huge blast door at the room’s front was used only as an entrance for clients, one of several visual representations of how seriously he took security. He wanted his guests to know they were safe under his roof—and that any attempts to harm him would be swiftly and wholly thwarted.

He sat down behind the wide desk at the edge of the raised platform, leaned back in his chair—tail swishing slowly through the cut-out at the base of the seat—and swept his gaze over the large chamber.

Low couches ran on either side of the carpeted walkway, and exotic sea creatures drifted in large tanks built into the walls. An autocannon hung from the ceiling in each of the four corners. Crimson and violet lights set the mood of the room, their relatively soft glows creating deep shadows in many places.

Arcanthus frowned; the lights didn’t suit his current mood. With a flick of his wrist, he brought up a dozen screens—two physical, the rest holographic projections—on the desk. He navigated the menus and commands with little conscious thought.

A moment later, the lights changed to blue; they were light-colored, with a touch of green, inside the tanks, and darkened near to black on the patches of wall in between.

Arcanthus shook his head. “A bit much, don’t you think?”

But he didn’t change the lights again; he shifted his attention to the screens and hacked into the Consortium’s identification database. He’d told himself it was a business matter when he started checking it daily a little over a week ago—he needed to keep informed regarding registration and immigration trends to be as effective as possible in his work. But he’d stopped several days ago, after realizing how much time he’d spent browsing the files of terran immigrants.

He’d been unable to justify his diligent perusal of those files.

“Drakkal is wrong,” he muttered as he entered his search criteria. “I’m not obsessed.”

A list of the Infinite City’s most recent immigrants—all having been processed in the last three days—populated one of the screens. Seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and forty-two names.

Without thinking, Arcanthus sorted the list to display the terrans on top.

“Whoops.”

He extended a finger to undo the change, but his hand froze before touching the control. There were only eleven new terrans; what was the harm in looking a little closer? Maintaining his relaxed position, Arcanthus perused the files. Five were related to one another—a terran diplomat, her husband, and their three children. He flicked them aside, dropping their files to the bottom of the list. The next two appeared to be former soldiers, possibly here to seek work with one of the many private security firms based out of Arthos. His own soldiering days had been brief and so long ago they felt like they’d occurred in another life; he had no desire to brush up against that world again. He dismissed both files.

Arcanthus continued his perusal, moving swiftly through three more files—a male and two females, none of whom sparked any interest in him. What had it been about the terran who’d come to him that set her apart from the rest? What about her had intrigued him?

He reached the last terran file. The name, translated phonetically into Universal Speech, wasSamantha Dawn Wilder. He opened the file.

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